Unworking summary

Before we look at the future of the office, let’s take a look at how we came to be where we are today.

The modern office has undergone major shifts over the past century. Early twentieth-century offices were based on scientific management principles aimed at maximizing productivity above all else. Frank Lloyd Wright's 1904 Larkin Building epitomized this with its slogan “Intelligence, Enthusiasm, Control.” Workers faced close supervision on open floors with no private spaces. While output climbed, health, satisfaction, and creativity declined.

By the late twentieth century, a new wave of “socially democratic” office design emerged, pioneered by Scandinavia's SAS Airlines. Its 1988 headquarters focused on empowerment, collaboration, and community. The spaces aimed to evoke a village functionality, rather than resembling an industrial machine. This challenged the obsession with top-down control and efficiency. But some hierarchies and imposed design concepts persisted from leadership. The office still didn’t fully meet diverse worker needs.

In the twenty-first century, work patterns have become more fluid, decentralized, and technology-enabled. Offices now operate as nodes in networks spanning organizations, teams, and projects. Steve Jobs envisioned offices enabling spontaneous meetings, following the ethos that creativity comes from spontaneous interaction of people.

When COVID-19 hit, it acted as one of the largest catalysts for change to our social concepts of the modern office. As workplaces shut down overnight, businesses and employees alike rushed to adapt to remote working and the technology that enabled it. Now, conversations that were once restricted to managers behind boardroom doors have become common for employees at all levels: What does the future of work look like, and how will the modern office adapt?

While some organizations still cling to traditional command-and-control models resistant to change, others experiment with radical flexibility in when and where work happens. Flexible and remote work has rapidly become commonplace. When they are in the office itself, employees expect spaces tailored to their physical, mental, and social well-being. Lasting change requires participatory design, giving workers control over their own environment.

Applying design intelligence and technology, the office must evolve beyond being a productivity machine. The future lies in human-centered workplaces promoting effectiveness, health, and well-being while adapting to emerging needs. Workers require autonomy, empowerment, and environments honoring both task needs and human values.

The office has progressed through phases of scientific management, social democracy, and decentralized networks. Each evolution brought new insights, yet failed to fully deliver on human potential. As work evolves, leading organizations will need to reinvent the office experience based on trust in people, not process. 

Let’s take a look at some of these evolutions, and how the office might evolve from here.